2017-2018 Student Awardees
Fall 2017
UNDERGRADUATE CANCER RESEARCH AWARDS
(Awarded $66,000 for students and research expenses)
College of Veterinary Medicine
Anatomy & Physiology
Riley Burghart – Mentor: Masaaki Tamura
Study of the effect of Euglena gracilis water extract on the proliferation of murine bone marrow cells
Jayden McCall – Mentor: Robert DeLong
Effect of nanoparticles on mRNA translation and delivery
Arashi Nakashima – Mentor: Masaaki Tamura
The effect of Euglena Gracilis Water Extract (EWE) on TLR expressions and cell growth of lung cancer cells
College of Arts & Sciences
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Alexandria Bontrager – Mentor: Erika Geisbrecht
Towards understanding how NUAK influences the balance between insulin signaling and cancer
Jennifer Coats – Mentor: John Tomich
Altering the assembly protocol of peptide nano-capsules to facilitate the intra-cellular release of encapsulated cargo
Emily Roggenkamp – Mentor: Greg Finnigan
Development of CRISPR/Cas gene editing tools to study the cell cycle in a yeast system
Marta Stetsiv – Mentor: Erika Geisbrecht
Identifying targets of conserved microRNAs that are misregulated in cancer
View Shawnee Dispatch 01/10/18 story on Marta Stetsiv.
Emily Wessel – Mentor: John Tomich
Selective delivery of fungicides using branched amphipathic peptide capsules
Biology
Eric Aube – Mentor: Katsura Asano
Translational control of mRNA bearing AAACA motifs by translation factor eIF3, an essential multi-subunit protein involved in tumorigenesis
Alexia Bieker – Mentor: Lorena Passarelli
Virus fractionation to enhance the identification of oxidized proteins as cancer targets
Yusuf Ciftci – Mentor: Revathi Govind
Deciphering SinR-SinR' interactions in Clostridium difficile
Marlene Compos-Guerrero – Mentor: Zhilong Yang
Construct anti-tumor recombinant VACV expressing dnPARP
Sarah Gillespie – Mentor: Katsura Asano
Translational control of repeat-associated non-AUG translation by 5MP, an emerging oncogenic protein
Kathlyn Gomendoza – Mentor: Lorena Passarelli
Identifying peptides that form a complex with a viral sulfhydryl oxidase that oxidases SfP53, an insect oncogene suppressor homolog
Connor Horn – Mentor: Govind Vediyappan
Antifungal development for Candida yeast infections in cancer patients
Faith Kim – Mentor: Jeroen Roelofs
Studies into the assembly mechanism of proteasome Core Particle, a target for the cancer drug Bortezomib
Marissa Komp – Mentor: Jocelyn McDonald
Genetic modifier screen to identify conserved cancer metastasis and invasion genes
Yibo Liu – Mentor: Ruth Welti
Characterization of two serine hydrolases
Elizabeth Martino – Mentor: Lorena Passerelli
Utilizing bioinformatics to identify substrates of a sulfhydyl oxidase and assessing their function
Micah Meyer – Mentor: Chingakham Singh
Adeno-associated virus control of host translation through eIF5-mimic protein
Jared Newell – Mentor: Thomas Mueller
An MRI approach to imaging brain physiology in zebrafish tumor models
Seth Peery – Mentor: Kathrin Schrick
Origin of flavonoid anticancer compounds in charophycean green algae
Charles Shaeffer – Mentor: Rollie Clem
Using a replicon system to assess in vivo viral tropism
Jazmine Snow – Mentor: Nick Wallace
HPV cancers and translesion synthesis protein abundance in proliferating cells
Mackenzie Thornton – Mentor: Katsura Asano
The role of translational regulation in nutritional stress response, which is important for cancer cell malignancy and metastasis
Read about Mackenzie in our 2020 Conquest magazine.
Vaithish Velazhahan – Mentor: Kathrin Schrick
Role of flavonoids in modulating transcription factor activity involved in cancer progression
Spencer Ward – Mentor: Michael Veeman
Par/aPKC dependent and independent mechanisms of asymmetric cell division
Kyler Weingartner – Mentor: Kathrin Schrick
Rhamnose synthase and its role in glycosylating flavonoids that are anticancer compounds
Alexa Wilden – Mentor: Stella Lee
Glutamine effects on lysosome morphology changes induced by autophagy
Chemistry
Johnathon Dallman – Mentor: Ryan Rafferty
Targeting cervical cancer – Exploiting the potent Polyketide unit of Lagunamide C with the targeting properties of Reniochalistatin E
Kelsey Ferguson – Mentor: Ryan Rafferty
Unlocking blood-brain barrier transport –Treatment of brain cancers
Olivia Haney – Mentor: Ryan Rafferty
Targeting multiple myeloma – Divergent total synthesis and targeted design
College of Engineering
Electrical & Computer Engineering
Jordan Disberger – Mentor: Punit Prakash
Techniques for automatic MRI-based control of microwave hyperthermia for thermal therapy of pancreatic cancer
GRADUATE TRAVEL AWARDS
(Awarded: $880 – Requested: $880)
Statistics
Guotao Chu, Yinhao Du – Mentor: Cen Wu
Eastern North American Region of International Biometric Society 2018 Spring Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia
HEART RESEARCH AWARD
(Awarded: $5,000 – Requested: $7,200)
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Simranjot Bawa – Mentor: Erika Geisbrecht
Defining the role of Drosophila dTRIM32 in cardiac muscle development
Spring 2018
GRADUATE STUDENT TRAVEL
(Awarded: $4,100 – Requested: $6,085)
Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering
Rajarshi Chowhury – Mentor: Amir Bahadori ($900)
American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA
Kinesiology
Dryden Baumfalk, Taylor Rand, Andrew Horn – Mentor: Brad Behnke ($700)
Experimental Biology, San Diego, CA
Electrical & Computer Engineering
Hojjatollah Fallahi – Mentor: Punit Prakash ($500)
IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Biomedical Conference, Philadephia, PA
Chemistry
Tuyen Nguyen, Ramesh Marasini – Santosh Aryal ($2,000)
American Chemical Society, New Orleans, LA
POST-DOC TRAVEL
(Awarded: $2,150 – Requested: $3,376)
Kinesiology
Alexander Opoku-Acheampong – Brad Behnke ($700)
Experimental Biology, San Diego, CA
Biology
Sebastian Wendel – Mentor: Nicholas Wallace ($950)
DNA Tumor Virus Meeting, Madison, WI
Shuai Cao – Zhilong Yang ($500)
American Society for Virology Annual Meeting, University of Maryland
GRADUATE STUDENT SUMMER STIPENDS
(Awarded: $47,102 – Requested: $86,278)
Chemistry
Jose Covarrubias – Mentor: Stefan Bossmann ($6,372)
Design of MTI-Sensors for Cancer-related Proteases and Kinases
Tuyen Nguyen – Mentor: Santosh Aryal ($6,371)
Immune compatible nanoparticle for targeted cancer therapy and diagnosis
Jay Sibbitts – Mentor: Chris Culbertson ($6,372)
Microfluidic Single-Cell Analysis for the Study of Multi-Targeted Cancer Therapeutic Strategies
Kaimin Jia – Mentor: Ping Li ($6,615)
Substrate profiling of carcinogenous N-terminal RCC1 methyltransferase 1
Anthony Fatino – Mentor: Ryan Rafferty ($6,450)
Discovery of Natural Product Inspired Bioactive Agents and Investigations into Delivery Across the Blood-Brain Barrier
Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics
Indhujah Thevarajan – Mentor: Michal Zolkiewski ($6,678)
Effect of the cancer-linked mutations in the tumor suppressor p53 on its protein interaction network
Biology
Pragyesh Dhungel – Mentor: Zhilong Yang ($7,044)
Selective mRNA translation during vaccinia virus infection
Kinesiology
Dryden Baumfalk – Mentor: Brad Behnke ($1,200)
Effects of prostate cancer on left ventricular function